I have a prepared statement, Senator Neely, and I want to adhere to it.

I am happy to appear today in support of the proposed legislation to restore the rights of home rule to the citizens of the District of Columbia.

As you know, Mr. Chairman, I have had the privilege to be, along with yourself and other Senators, a cosponsor of S. 656, just as I was a supporter last year of similar legislation.

The present government of the District of Columbia is an antique curiosity, surviving from more leisurely days, when Washington was still little more than a good-sized village, and when Congress had more time to consider the regulation of starlings and goats.

The commission government, from the first, involved an ironical denial of the fundamental American right of self-government in the capital of the American democracy. Under present conditions, the use of Congress as a local legislature for the District is also an imposition on Congressmen and their constituents.

As the proclaimed champion of democracy in a world of conflict, and also the proclaimed champion of representative government, this country cannot afford the luxury of undemocratic aberrations in its form of government.

So long as we put up with the arbitrary rule of American citizens by persons in whose selection they have no part, we are vulnerable to criticism as being inconsistent and, if I may be equally frank, hypocritical.

It makes no difference how clean the streets of Washington may be or how wide its boulevards or how free from graft, the commission government remains a form of carpetbag rule. That 800,000 American citizens should today be denied the right to decide what local taxes they should pay, and how such taxes are to be expended would, I think, be a cause for astonishment to most of the people of the United States if it were widely known.

May I just digress for a moment: I cannot imagine, in view of my somewhat limited and yet intensive experience as a municipal official and, by the way, our distinguished chairman is likewise a former mayor of a fine city-I cannot imagine what would happen in my home town of Minneapolis, Minn., if one would impose the tax upon us, a local tax, where the representatives of the people in that locality had absolutely nothing to say about it.

First of all, just to get any kind of a tax is a major municipal operation. To think that you can get anyone to pay the tax if it were not imposed by the will of the people through their elected representatives, is something that goes far beyond any experience that I have ever known in municipal government.

I am sure that out in the Midwest, and I am sure that that includes the great western State of West Virginia, that such action of taxation without representation would again stir up a new Boston Tea Party. The CHAIRMAN. Precisely.

Senator HUMPHREY. From a congressional point of view, it is hardly less important that some of us have to spend, as members of District committees of the two Houses, a very large part of our time

on purely local matters, and that all of us share responsibilities for decisions on such matters when they come to the floors of the Congress. It is absurd that the time of Congressmen, men elected to govern in the Government of the United States of America, and men who have great responsibility to their own constituency from their own districts, it is absurd that that time should be spent on most of the subjects of District legislation.

Now, I believe Senator Monroney spoke or testified before this committee, and I know that Senator Monroney is one of the outstanding experts in our Congress on the matter of expediting the work of our Congress, and on improving the rules that pertain to the control of congressional legislative matters, and while I did not have a chance to hear the testimony of Senator Monroney, I have spoken to him about this, and I know that he feels that one way that we could improve the working of Congress, to expedite its work, particularly on the great issues that affect our country, is to support home rule for the District of Columbia, to get this minutia of detail the small local ordinances, which ought to be handled by a city council, away from the committees of Congress and from the floor of the Senate and the floor of the House.

These subjects do not affect the national interest in the capital. The subject which the Congress legislates on, that pertains to the District of Columbia, most of these subjects would be handled in our own constituencies at the level of a city or a town council.

I know that the home rule bill before this committee will remedy both of the existing defects to which I have referred.

Only by such system as is provided in the bill for the adoption of legislative proposals by the city council and their enactment into law in the absence of a congressional or Presidential veto, can Congress and the President be relieved of the present ridiculous responsibility for District legislation.

Mr. Chairman, I want to say this: Here is a period in human history when our President is beseiged by tremendous problems of world-wide importance, and great problems of domestic importance, this whole picture of wage stabilization, economic stabilization, the whole program of defense mobilization, this vast and intricate problem of our foreign relations.

Then, to think that the President of the United States has got to take time out of his day to act as a mayor for the District of Columbia is incredible, utterly incredible.

I also want to point out, Mr. Chairman, one observation which I would like to make. The city of Washington, D. C., is a beautiful city, and its beauty is in its boulevards, its parks, its trees, its buildings, its monuments, its historical settings, the beautiful Potomac, and all, but there is something else, some kind of beauty that this city lacks, and it is the kind of beauty that can even make a coal-mining town or a mining town in Montana or a little town in the timberlands in Minnesota look very beautiful.

The beauty I refer to is the beauty of community spirit, and if there is anything that Washington, D. C., lacks it is the community spirit, that kind of fellowship that comes from knowing that you are a part of a community where you have something to say about it.

You cannot have pride of ownership and pride of citizenship unless you were a participant and—

The CHAIRMAN. Unless you enjoy some of the rights.

Senator HUMPHREY (continuing). Enjoy some of the rights of citizenship, and here in the District, the pride of citizenship participation, the honor of being a first-class citizen, and a first-class nation in the world, is denied approximately 800,000 people. It is absolutely incredible to assume that the Government employees would dominate this city, as a previous witness said, is beyond the realm of fact; and the Corporation Counsel who testified-I read his testimony only as it was reported by the press-does not represent what I would call from my part of the country a good citizen. He does not represent that kind of citizenship spirit where people are jealous of their local rights.

As you know very well, in a community of 500,000, 200,000, or a million or a community of 10,000, to amend a city charter arouses the interest of every citizen in the community. Why? Because when an amendment of a city charter comes up, it affects the basic rights of every individual in that community.

Here is a city that has been politically sterilized. It actually has been denied the law of the land; these people have been denied an opportunity to even be what you can call in a democratic sense citizens. I repeat that a community without a vote is a community without spirit, and citizens without a vote are in essence colonial citizens. They represent what we fought against in this country in 1776.

It does not fundamentally affect my State, but it does affect the regard that the people of my State have for their entire Government, and I know that if I went up and down the highways and byways of my State and said that down in Washington, D. C., the Nation's Capital, that the people who have lived there all their lives, have homes, are taxpayers in that community, have not even as much as the right to vote for a Member of Congress, as well as a local alderman or councilman, they would literally be horrified. Why, that just is not heard of any place except in Washington, and, I might say, in the satellite countries. The only place where you are denied the right to vote are in the countries behind the iron curtain. There, at least, you have the right to vote for the slate that is put out by the Cominform. But here you do not even have the right to vote on anybody's slate.

The only people who have the right to vote in Washington, D. C., are the members of the Board of Trade, and they can vote for their own officers, and I must say, while I have no right to criticize the Board of Trade, because I know nothing of its membership except what I have read in the press, I can honestly say that any government, any community that depends for its inspiration and its guidance and its direction upon any private organization, whether it is labor or business or whether it is education or whatever it may be, is a community without any real sense of direction, because the job of government is to work with organizations and to correlate the efforts of these private organizations toward the community's good; and Washington finds itself with many fine private, or what I call semipublic, organizations, labor movements, the Board of Trade, the PTA, but no place to go.

The only place that they can go is to the Commissioners appointed by the President.

It would seem to me that the least that could be done, if we are going to have government by indirection in the District of Columbia, is to see that they would have a right to vote for the President of the United States, since he is making the appointments.

But under, of course, S. 656 there will be what I would call a constitutional local government organization in this city, and Washington will become a much more beautiful and much better city for it.

I commend your efforts, Mr. Chairman, and I hope that the Congress of the United States will see that this great Capital City stands out like-let me put it this way-that it does not stand out like a spot on the sun of democracy-that is the way it stands out now. It is just like a blur on the sun of democracy, and it ought to be one of the stars in the heavenly orbit of freedom. Unfortunately, it is not.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. [Applause.]

The CHAIRMAN. The next witness is Mrs. Helen Duey Hoffman.

STATEMENT OF HELEN DUEY HOFFMAN, WASHINGTON BRANCH, AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITY WOMEN

Mrs. HOFFMAN. My testimony, Mr. Senator, will take about 2 minutes. I am speaking for the American Association of University Women, Washington branch.

That organization has 1,100 branches over the country, and is a member of the International Federation of University Women, which has a membership organization all over the world.

About 4 years ago at their biennial convention in Dallas, Tex., they voted that there should be some measure of home rule for the District of Columbia. There was no bill before the Congress at that time, but subsequently the Auchincloss bill was introduced, and they studied it, and the Washington branch endorsed the Auchincloss bill, in principle.

When that bill failed, the following year the Kefauver bill was studied by the Washington branch, and it was approved. That bill, of course, failed, and now, through the legislative committee, which met last night, they have reaffirmed their position on home rule for the District of Columbia and they approve Senate 656, the KefauverTaft bill, and hope that it passes.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you ever so much. We hope it passes, too. The next on the list is Mr. Culver Chamberlain, representing the Central Suffrage Conference.

STATEMENT OF CULVER CHAMBERLAIN, PRESIDENT, CENTRAL

SUFFRAGE CONFERENCE

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. Mr. Chairman, here I am again. I am Culver Chamberlain, president of the Central Suffrage Conference of the District of Columbia.

Now, Senator, any attempt at eloquence on my part, after such brilliant demonstrations by professionals, would be as untimely as it

would be wearing on your patience, considering the lateness of the hour, and I shall be brief.

The CHAIRMAN. You may proceed.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. I shall be brief, not only in deference to you, but to those particularly desiring to be heard, and also, Senator, we are anxious to expedite your committee hearing of this measure, and get it through the Senate, so that we can take a whack at the other side of Congress in good season.

The Central Suffrage Conference, for which I have the honor to speak, is, of course, unqualifiedly for suffrage in all its aspects for the District.

But first and foremost at this time we are for Senate 656, and the companion measure in the House of Representatives.

The CHAIRMAN. These hearings will presently be adjourned to be continued at 10 o'clock tomorrow. All who are interested will be notified.

(Discussion off the record.)

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. The reason that we emphasize this measure that is before us, Senate 656, is primarily because we believe in first things first. We are no less interested, naturally, in national representation, but this can be realized, as we well know, by the mere action of the two Houses, whereas the other matter will require a matter of probably years to bring about.

The CHAIRMAN. A constitutional amendment, of course, takes time. Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. That is right.

Now, I am much intrigued by the discussion that has been going on here this afternoon, concerning the attitude of the opposition to local self-government.

May I say this: There have always been Tories, Mr. Chairman. We, of course, have some in the District of Columbia. They are usually people who have Tory tendencies, which are motivated, at least in part, by economic, or, shall we say, more frankly, selfish interests.

It is believed that this is true of that minority, and we are confident that it is a minority, of those opposing self-government for the District of Columbia.

I fear those in opposition are motivated by selfish vested interests and/or by an unreasoning and unreasonable prejudice.

I refer to the racial minority of some 30 percent of our population. I shall not insult the intelligence of this committee by dignifying this latter untenable and ridiculous contention, which is, nevertheless, constantly whispered about. Few have the courage to come out and breathe it in public.

Coming to the Board of Trade, I would like to be charitable to the Board of Trade. Among other reasons, I happen to be a member of the Board of Trade. Therefore, when its, should I say, high command, or invisible government, puts forward the statements which they do, I can assure you that they do not speak unanimously for that organization.

However, I believe, and one of the reasons I retain my membership in the Board of Trade is that I hope we can eventually convert and make good citizens of all these people who now are opposing these